Frequently asked questions

Yes, completely free. You can transcribe as many videos as you like without paying, creating an account, or hitting a usage cap. There are no hidden credits, no trial periods, and no paywalled export formats. Plain text, timestamped text, SRT subtitle files, and WebVTT files are all available for download at no cost. The tool is supported by display advertising rather than subscriptions, so the core transcription feature will always be free for personal and professional use. Journalists, researchers, students, and content creators all use it daily without ever entering a credit card. There is no difference in quality or speed between free and any paid tier — there is only one tier and it is free. If you run into any issues or need help with a specific video, you can reach the team directly at rishav@yttotranscript.com.

The tool supports YouTube (standard videos, Shorts, live stream recordings, and podcast episodes), Instagram (Reels and standard video posts), and TikTok (regular clips and short-form links). For all three platforms you simply paste the public URL into the input field and click Transcribe — no special formatting or video ID lookup is required. Private videos, age-restricted content, and anything behind a login wall cannot be accessed because those restrictions are enforced at the platform level and cannot be bypassed. Geographic restrictions set by the uploader can also block access from certain countries or regions. Support for additional video platforms may be added in future updates based on user demand and technical feasibility. If you have a specific platform request, reach out via the contact page and it will be considered for the next development release.

No installation is required. The transcription engine runs entirely on the server side, so there is nothing to download, configure, or update on your device. You open the website in any browser, paste a video link into the input field, and receive a formatted transcript within seconds. A free Chrome extension is also available for one-click transcription while you are actively watching a video on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, but it is entirely optional and not required to use the main tool. The web interface works on every major browser including Safari on iOS and iPadOS, Firefox on Android, and Microsoft Edge on Windows. No account sign-in, no browser plugins, and no desktop software are needed at any point in the process. The entire experience is designed to work immediately on the first visit with zero setup.

Yes. Every transcript can be exported in four formats. Plain text (.txt) is ideal for copy-paste use in documents, notes, email, or search indexing. Timestamped text (.txt) includes the precise start time of each spoken line, making it easy to navigate back to a specific moment in the original video. SRT (.srt) is the widely supported subtitle format used by video editing software including Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, and CapCut, as well as most social platforms when uploading captions manually. WebVTT (.vtt) is the web-native format used to embed accessible captions in HTML5 video players and is natively supported by Vimeo, Wistia, and similar hosting platforms. All four download options appear in the export toolbar as soon as a transcript has been generated, with no limits on how many times you can export.

Accuracy depends primarily on the source material and the type of captions available. When a video has human-written or professionally edited captions — common on news channels, university lectures, major podcasts, and corporate webinars — the transcript is essentially verbatim and highly reliable for citation or research. When only auto-generated captions are available, accuracy is typically very high for clear speech in standard accents but can drop noticeably for strong regional accents, fast speech, heavy technical jargon, and proper nouns such as brand names or people's names. For videos with no captions at all, the tool falls back to automatic speech recognition powered by modern AI models, which performs well on most spoken content but is not perfect in all conditions. For any transcript intended for publication, academic citation, or legal and journalistic use, carefully reviewing the output before use is strongly recommended.

Transcripts are cached temporarily to make repeat requests for the same video faster and to reduce unnecessary server load, but they are not tied to any user profile or personal account because this platform does not have accounts. There is no mechanism to link a cached transcript to a specific visitor or IP address over time. Cached data expires automatically on a rolling schedule and is not shared with third parties, sold to advertisers, or used to train any AI or machine learning models. The video content itself — audio, video frames, and media files — is never downloaded or permanently stored on our servers. Only the caption text or speech recognition output is processed and briefly held in cache. If you are handling sensitive interviews, confidential recordings, or proprietary material, reviewing the full privacy policy before use is recommended.

Several conditions can prevent a transcript from being generated. Private videos, age-restricted content, members-only posts, and deleted videos are inaccessible because the platform does not permit external tools to retrieve their data under any circumstances. Some videos — particularly short meme clips, background music videos, ASMR recordings, or silent ambient footage — contain no spoken dialogue and therefore have no captions or usable speech audio to process. Very recently uploaded videos may not yet have automatic captions generated by the originating platform; waiting 15 to 30 minutes and retrying usually resolves this. Geographic content restrictions applied by the uploader can also block access depending on your current location. If a specific public video with clear spoken audio consistently fails to generate a transcript, reporting it via the contact page helps identify and address gaps in platform coverage.